October 6: Weldon Springs

We are all downstream. In Missouri, this is more true than in other places. We have karst topography--essentially the ground is limestone swiss cheese. This creates caves, sinkholes, and losing streams. Geologically fascinating, it is also dangerous ecologically. Build a uranium enrichment plant on the side of a bluff in the 1940s, say, as part of the Manhattan Project, say. Where might that waste, that leftover radioactive waste, wind up? Anywhere south, east, or west. What’s done is done.

Sophia and I hike Weldon Springs, rebranded as a Lewis and Clark trail. But the land is fallow because what’s under the ground, seeping away, dripping, dripping, dripping.